This is turning into a State of the Union-like event. The White House has announced that nearly two-dozen guests will sit with first lady Michelle Obama to watch President Obama deliver his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress.

Among Obama's featured invitees...

Richard Trumka is the president of the AFL-CIO. Mr. Trumka was elected president of the AFL-CIO in September 2009. His election followed 14 years of service as Secretary-Treasurer of the AFL-CIO. Trumka is a third-generation coal miner from Nemacolin, Penn., began working in the mines at age 19. Trumka currently serves as a member of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.

Meanwhile, as Elisabeth noted earlier, House Speaker John Boehner's guest list includes a bevy of actual job creators whose businesses have been damaged by this administration's big government zealotry and regulatory overreach. Republicans have studiously passed up the opportunity to offer an official response to Obama's political speech tonight, a decision that Nancy Pelosi is hilariously denouncing as "disrespectful."

Bravo for the GOP, I say. Boehner's played his cards quite shrewdly here. He used a logistical maneuver to beat back the White House's initial scheduling power play, bowed to presidential prerogative on the speech itself, then highlighted the shamelessly political nature of the address by declining to formally respond. Republicans' response will be personified by the business leaders in Boehner's box. Recapping: In the president's box, an opportunistic corporate crony, and a union chieftain, hundreds of whose members just resorted to thuggery while agitating for higher compensation. In the speaker's box, job creators who want federal bureaucrats to get out of the way so their businesses can flourish and expand. The dichotomy will be striking.